


Who Would Think to Worry?

by Leidolette



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Animal Death, Background Het, F/M, Gore, Implied Violence, Kink Meme, Post SBURB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2017-12-22 16:16:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's bad when Jade stops answering any of her friends' messages, and it gets worse when they travel across the Pacific to find out what's wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> Based off this fantastic prompt from Homesmut:
> 
> "SBURB is over, the game is won. Everyone is happy and back to they were before the whole ordeal started. (Although maybe older.) Jade is on her island, but getting everything done so she can leave and be closer to the others.
> 
> And then one day they stop hearing from her.
> 
> At first everyone thinks she's just busy. But gradually they realize that something horrible has happened, and there is nothing they can do about it."
> 
> which can be found here: http://homesmut.dreamwidth.org/39135.html?thread=42698207#cmt42698207
> 
>  
> 
> Also, the romance is _very_ slight and the M rating is solely for gore.

EB: i can't believe you are leaving your island and flying all the way across an ocean just to go to school.

EB: that is so lame!

GG: im going to see you guys too

EB: yeah, but then you are going to spend the rest of summer in a lab in california

GG: i know! its going to be so cool!!

EB: okay, you like that sort of stuff. i guess i understand.

EB: but the true purpose of summer is summer movies!

GG: it is?

EB: duh, of course

EB: so many good ones coming out this year too.

EB: we should see a bunch while you're at my house, at least one every night.

EB: and there's a drive-in theater not too far away, we should totally go there too. i think you'd like that.

GG: yeah! that sounds great! can i drive to the drive in too?

EB: hahahahaha, no!

EB: holy shit, no!

GG: >:(

EB: sorry, jade. you should have heard the speech my dad gave me when i finally got my license. the word 'responsibility' was said more times that day than all other days combined.

GG: bluh

EB: but, maybe...

GG: yeah?

EB: well, maybe if we drive out to the woods you can go super slow down the dirt roads?

GG: YES!!!! thanks!

EB: you know this is nothing compared to god-tier and flying, right?

GG: shush! it will be fantastic

EB: in a few short weeks you'll be doing experimental physics and you've never ridden in a car before. that makes sense.

EB: anyways, i will be ready with a car and a movie schedule when i come to pick you up at the airport.

GG: i will be there :)

EB: i can't wait, jade.

\----

TT: So, I understand you have a flight countdown. May I have an update?

GG: twenty days!!!

GG: twenty days before im on the same continent as you guys :D

TT: Why that's practically in our backyard. You'll have to keep me informed of the daily counter.

GG: i will!

GG: well... at least i will most days. maybe not next week

TT: Oh? Why the gap?

GG: a stupid tropical storm is forming off the coast of panama and it might blow my direction.

GG: this has happened before and it messed up my internet for a while. 

TT: And here I was believing that I alone had the monopoly on storms disrupting internet signals.

GG: nope!

GG: i just landed on big fat typhoon boardwalk and staticy signal park place

GG: i have the new monopoly heehee!

TT: I must confess: I'm not loathe to give it up.

GG: and im not very glad to be taking it to be honest :(

TT: Is the storm that serious? Are you in any danger?

GG: no its not that bad

GG: im just being a whiner because after it blows over i have to go up on the roof and fix all of the receivers myself and its so tedious!!

GG: sometimes it can take a long time

TT: Well, I assure you that the internet connection in my house is whole and hale.

TT: And completely available to any budding scientists who want to use their holographic, cybercute laptops at my house.

GG: i bet you have so many scientists coming to your house all the time then

TT: So many. But there is always room for one more.

GG: :O

TT: Yes, that was a hint that you should visit me while you are in the country.

GG: hint taken!

GG: though... i may have already bought plane tickets to come see you all weeks ago

TT: Before we invited you? How rude.

GG: john and dave invited me forever ago! you have just been a slowpoke

TT: I suppose I have been a "slowpoke".

TT: But I'm pleased you're coming to New York. 

\----

TG: i cant believe youre visiting john first

GG: you know, his house is technically the closest to my island

TG: whatever

TG: what are you two even going to do together?

TG: seriously is there anything you can do at his place that you cant do at mine

TG: besides eat six cakes a day

GG: john is going to let me drive his car!!!

TG: ...

TG: okay

TG: but wait til you get to houston 

TG: city living at its finest

TG: the annual skin melting heatwave might even be in full swing when you arrive

GG: oh jeez i would not want to miss that

TG: and with gods luck you wont

TG: you got a lot to learn in the couple days that youll be here

GG: like what?

TG: like how to know which record stores will have the most incredible collection of soft rock cds from the 90s 

TG: or where you can find the most dead armadillos in one spot

TG: do you even have a fake id to get into clubs?

TG: oh shit so much to do

GG: and we will do it all!

TG: hella fucking right

GG: maybe i will have something to teach you too :)

TG: cmon jade i already know how to do a sweet ollie what more do i need to know

GG: you will seeeee

TG: so 

TG: damn

TG: coquettish

GG: yep!!

TG: oh good well as long as you know

TG: so anyways i know that you will probably be out of contact for a while soon so i just want to say that its cool that youre finally flying in

TG: pro tip bring youre dopest clothes

TG: i.e. something that wasnt made by a dog

GG: nope!

TG: k

GG: <3

\---- 

John waits at the airport for hours. 

Dave flicks the freshly made I.D. card between his fingers. 

Rose cleans her room for a guest that never comes. 


	2. Silence

The days go by faster than Rose would have thought. First a week sheds off -- easily, and without any worry. Jade had said that she would be out of touch. Then the next week ends without a word. And the next one. Jade misses her flight and her school orientation. 

To their shame, it took longer than it should have for any of them to broach the matter. Worry grew in each of them like cold poison as the days passed, but who wants to say it? Who wants to be the first one to say that something is very, very wrong with a friend?

The dam broke first with Dave, and harshly.

TG: jeez 

TG: what the fuck is up with jade

TG: she dead or something?

Was he joking? Rose didn't know, but he got the ball rolling. It was hard to dodge the issue now that the worst-case scenario was out in the open. But it wasn't long before a new problem revealed itself: How do you rescue someone half a world away?

Rose calls the Coast Guard base in Honolulu and says that Jade is a US citizen who might be in trouble. She might be lying though her teeth, and she sure as hell is leaving out a lot of information (like: 'please ignore the mysterious ruins in the lagoon and the taxidermied dead man in the basement'), but divulging everything would be a fool's errand. It makes no difference, though; the exasperated woman on the other end of the phone tells her that an island at those coordinates doesn't exist. Rose tries, but no amount of calm insistence will convince them otherwise.

It takes more than a little willpower not to throw the phone across the room when they finally hang up on her. There will be no help from official channels. Fine. Rose empties her bank account and buys three tickets to Hawaii. She'll figure out what to do when they get there.

\----

By the time they are pushing though waves on the ocean sea, it has been a month since any of them had heard from Jade. The boat was rented from some shady character in Hilo who didn't care to question their teenaged faces. Their identification said they were twenty-one, so who cared? Rose was discovering what a difference the liberal application of lies and bribes could make.

The trip had been a long one. Jade's island and Hawaii were in the same general neighborhood, but it was a very _big_ neighborhood. Rose had lain in bed the first night and wished to the fathomless darkness between the stars that Jade would be okay. She'd drifted off to sleep with no answer, just the sound of John's deep breathing and Dave twisting and turning in the dark.

It was a rough journey, too. Three young people, just barely into technical adulthood, alone on the ocean. None of them knew how to handle a boat, but it was nothing that frantic googling and desperation couldn't hastily "solve". They weren't going to sink (probably), but it was clear that no one was going to get their security deposit back, either. Rose could not care less.

Dave acts... funny throughout the journey. Not that any of them are acting within their usual parameters, but Dave is the worst. He's worried, of course, but moody too, and prone to snapping comments. He makes no secret of the fact that he thinks Jade could be dead, and sometimes Rose had to struggle to not get into a screaming match with him in the close confines of the ship. The worst though, was when Rose woke up during their last night at sea to use the head and found Dave staring at a small package in his hand with hope in his eyes. The thing was wrapped in paper printed in a pattern of tiny paw prints and steaming beakers that Dave must have designed himself. Rose throat tightens to the point that it feels like there is a noose around her neck.

The sky is a clear blue on the morning that Jade's island finally comes into view. The weather is perfect. Seabirds call in the distance. An ocean breeze ruffles the palm fronds that John strains to see through his glasses. The island looks calm and pristine. Only the globed tower rising from the center of the island up over the trees betrays a human presence.

They inflate the small, rubber dinghy they found stored below deck and take it into shore. It's about as beat-up as everything else on the ship, but it holds together as John does his best to navigate the rough waves that break near the shore. He has a knack for anticipating rogue gusts of wind that could push them off course. As soon as the bottom of the dinghy scrapes over the the sandy bottom of the beach, Dave scrambles onto the sand yells out a near-deafening "Jade!"

Dave's voice doesn't echo, but Jade's name seems to hang in the air anyways. All three of them freeze in place. Rose pauses her breathing and strains to listen -- she hopes against hope that she will hear an answer. Maybe it really will be that easy. Maybe after all this distance traveled they'll find Jade, whole and safe, within minutes of touching down on her island. Rose strains her eyes along the treeline, searching for any sign of movement.

But she finds nothing. Dave's yell dies away, and there is nothing more than there was five minutes ago: the breeze, the birds, and the waves. Despite nothing changing, the beach seems emptier.

Rose's heart sinks and sinks and sinks.

Rose carefully steps over the inflatable lip of the dinghy. The sand shifts under her feet and heat radiates up through the thin soles of her shoes. She looks at her companions. 

John still sullenly has his ear cocked toward the treeline, waiting for any hint of noise. Dave's eyes are hidden by his shades, but the corners of his mouth are tight, and his thumb is rubbing the outline of the wrapped gift in his pocket. Rose sighs. Between the three of them, dragging the dinghy to a safe spot near the treeline is short work.

"Let's begin our search in that direction," Rose says, motioning to the stretch of beach that seems to stray closest to the towering piece of Jade's home. It was probably an unnecessary thing to say - there's only one obvious direction - but the silence hung so heavy she felt like something must be said. She sets off in the direction she indicated, Dave and John follow mutely behind her.

They have a stroke of luck, and find a path not too far down the beach leading into the interior of the forest. The boughs of the trees at the entrance are tied together, forming a simple arch. A couple of colorful flowers have been planted in a cluster around their trunks. It is very sweet. 

They slip though the living arch and follow the trail that seems to be leading them towards the spire in the distance. When the group rounds a corner, Rose intentionally falls towards the rear and she pulls her phone out of her pocket. Even now, at this late date, Rose checks the Pesterchum application, hoping to see a new message from gardenGnostic. The screen is as empty as ever.

Away from the ocean wind the heat begins to feel oppressive. Sweat rolls down Rose's back. The trail follows a shallow, but unrelenting incline, and it isn't long before Rose is breathing hard. She wishes they would have thought to bring water.

They walk further. Eventually, the path emerges from the forest and onto a sloping plain. Rose gets her first unobstructed view of Jade's house. It's quite grand, maybe closer to a fortress than a house, but beautiful and whimsical. They come to the spiraling stairway that leads to Jade's front door. Dave starts up immediately, taking them two at a time. _Ugh, it's going to take forever to climb all of these stairs_. Absently, Rose remembers hearing once that stairs were one of the most dangerous areas of the home. She looks at the great spiral walkway that winds round and round the peak in front of her. Jade has about a hundred times more stairs at her house than anyone else. _Oh God, what if she fell down the stairs? What if that stupid thing you've been joking about for years is actually the thing that killed her._

The climb is long. Rose and John lag behind Dave as they ascend step by step. Sweat rolls down Rose's forehead and stings her eyes, but she keeps her gaze directed downward and over the staircase's edge, just in case she catches a glimpse of... something. John, however, has his eyes directed towards the house, and makes a note of surprise in his throat when they turn onto the last spiral before Jade's door where Dave is already waiting. He nudges Rose with his elbow, "That looks pretty important, huh?" he says.

When she on the last dozen or so steps before the door, she sees it too: a large battered antenna hanging loosely over an eave. Knocked down by the storm, perhaps? "Perhaps important enough to keep Jade from communicating with us," Rose says, her voice not betraying a hint of judgement either way, but the sunlight seems to be glinting off the scratched tip of the antenna like a ray of hope.

"Yeah, important enough that you would think she'd be out here trying to fix it, huh?" Dave says acidly without turning around. Rose knows that this is his way of coping -- and as an amateur student of psychology she understands its important -- but she looks at the back of his head and wishes he would shut the fuck up.

Rose's legs feel quivery by the time they crowd in front of Jade's front door, and she's taking big, gulping breaths. Jade must have calves of steel, Rose thinks, then realizes that she may very well never find out if that is true.

The door rises tall and shiny in front of them. It's made of some sort of burnished metal and is spotless. "Would you like to do the honors?" Rose says, nodding at John. He grimaces.

John turns and slams his thick fist against the door three times in a reverberating knock. 

There is no answer.

The door is unlocked and swings open easily. Rose wonders if Jade has ever had cause to lock a door in her entire life.

"Jade?" John calls uncertainly into the gloom of the open doorway. It's hard to see very far into the room after walking miles through the brightness of a tropical afternoon. After a moment, she begins to make out some shapes in a cluster. She thinks she sees... statues? Rose walks into the front room and blinks as her eyes adjust.

There are no statues. Instead, there is a group of posed figures arranged on two sofas. Rose sees a suite of armor, and a mannequin. She walks closer to the arrangement as John and Dave enter behind her. With a deep sense of disquiet she realizes that the third figure is a stuffed deer dressed in an old-fashioned tuxedo, its white lapels dotted with little strands of fur. The last object seated on the couch is a mummy looking very ancient, and very _real_. 

Worst of all, though, is the towering form of Jade's Grandpa, looming over all like a king holding court. The taxidermy is of uneven quality, Rose notes dispassionately, The pose is lifelike, but Rose can see visible stitching that appears to have been done by a clumsy hand. The old man is cartoonishly dressed like a big game hunter, and his fingers grip the long barrel of a blunderbuss. The setting of his face is quite natural, past the wrinkles and dust Rose can even see the resemblance between him and Jade. His green glass eyes glitter at her from behind a pair of glasses.

Perhaps the designer meant for this display to be whimsical, instead Rose finds the whole scene to be macabre in the extreme.

John makes a face when he sees Jade's Grandpa stiffly propped up on the pedestal. "Ugh, I see that hasn't changed since I was Jade's server player."

Dave passes by seemingly unbothered by the collection of dead things. He looks underneath the couches and in the dusty corners looking for... clues? Rose doesn't know. There doesn't seem to be anything more on this floor besides strange and musty relics of the past. The room is dim, there's only a few high, slitted windows. The light shines in as weak beams, illuminating currents of dust slowly drifting through the air. Everything is so still, Rose feels like she's walked into a tomb. Looking at the slumped form of Grandpa Harley, she supposes that she already has, no matter what else they may find today. She is glad when they pass through the next doorway.

Rose gives the Typheus minion that they pass on the way to the stairs a good hard look. Like most everything else in Jade's house so far, it is dead and stuffed. Despite its harmlessness, its sheer size is enough to make Rose very aware of the beast as she walks under its shadow. She hears a quiet "Hey there," from John as the stairs wind past the worm's giant head.

The next room does nothing to dispel the strange museum quality of the house. In fact, it could almost be some long-forgotten wing of the Louvre -- if the Louvre displayed nothing but sun-bleached posters of women with impressively feathered hair. Blue ladies peer from all available space on the walls, and there are more stacked in big piles on the floor. The memory of accompanying her mother to her weekly hair appointments is suddenly upon Rose; she remembers staring at a framed poster in the salon, similar to the ones that surround her now, in a haze of absolute boredom.

Dave maybe cracks the ghost of a smile. Rose should have known that all this would tickle his ironic photography bone. All of them might have truly liked this house, in fact, if they had been here under different circumstances. Rose wonders if she would have found Grandpa Harley's display to be a moving memorial instead of a mirthless parody of life if there had been a dark-haired girl next to her to talk about the man himself. Maybe John would have loved all the evidence of a life lived adventurously that was scattered in every room of the house.

"Jade?" Dave called up the stairs to the next story.

Maybe if they found Jade they could still have all that. 

Rose shook her head. At least this room had been peaceful.

The same can't be said about the next floor. As soon as Rose passes through the doorway it is clear that something is wrong.

Before even getting to the signs of obvious violence, the room itself is oppressive. If Rose hadn't already been wondering about the state of Grandpa Harley's mind, she certainly would after seeing this decor. Mummies are everywhere, just like the blue ladies had been, lining the wall and set up on pedestals in the center of the room. Like the one downstairs on the couch, these are true mummies. Rose catches glimpses of grey, papery skin covered by gauzy strips of cloth that wind round and round their thin bodies. The tiny bones of their fingers are too close to the surface, looking both delicate and steely at the same time. Each withered face she sees has empty eye sockets and too many teeth.

Rose can smell them too. Before now she would not have thought that mummies smelled like much of anything, but they do. The background scent of pine and musty soil fill the room.

"What the fuck," Dave says, looking around at the piles of mummies, "Just... what the fuck."

The skin along Rose's back begins to crawl, but she forces herself to keep her breathing even and her eyes sharp. There's worse than long dead mummies here, anyways. Rose walks over to the north wall, and examines the spray of bullet holes that have blown big chunks out of the plaster. Dozens of them make a sloppy line that travels across the entirety of the south wall at about head height. Besides the paint job, it appears that a slim mummy leaning against the wall is the only victim. The top of its head is blown off. The flesh and bone that wasn't pulverized into dust by the force of the blast hangs from the jagged remains of the skull by a few strips of dry skin. Little chunks of bone litter the floor. Rose tries not to step on any as she walks closer to the wall, but she occasionally feels the crunch of something beneath her feet and her stomach tightens.

John joins her. "So something did happen," he says with his eyes on the pox marked wall.

"Apparently so."

Questions rise up in Rose's mind. Did Jade do this? What was she shooting at? Why didn't she hit it?

_Where is she?_

"Jade?" Dave's muffled voice calls.

Rose turns around to a room with a distinct lack of Dave. He must have gone ahead. _Fantastic_ , Rose thinks, _as soon as we discover evidence of violence Dave splits up the group._ She and John hurry up the stairs to the next level. Rose pauses on the second to last step. There's a small dark splotch in the corner, and when she looks closer she can see that it's blood. Just a splash, just a spoonful or two, long since turned brown and flaky. Rose turns back to the doorway, she does not call John and Dave.

The room that Rose walk into must have been grand at some point. The walls are constructed of some sort of rich, dark hardwood and the few suits of armor left standing standing about the room gleam silver. The effect is spoiled, however, by the wreck that the room has been left in. Most of the finely crafted suits of armor that had been so meticulously arranged on pedestals are now strewn about on the floor. 

What happened here? A fight? An earthquake? Rose considered that last possibility for a moment. It wasn't as farfetched as it sounded. Maybe there hadn't been anything so vicious as an outside attack. Jade _did_ live in the shadow of an active volcano, after all. Tremors might happen all the time -- though Jade had never mentioned them. Rose constructed the scenario in her head: sometime during the storm there had been an earthquake. It had knocked down the suits of armor in this room and shook the house hard enough to severely damage the communications systems. _But what about the bullets?_ she thought. Well, maybe Jade had been cleaning her gun, and the force of the earthquake made her drop it, causing it to fire a spate of shots into the wall? Rose didn't know enough about guns to know if that was a reasonable scenario or not, if she were being honest. _And the blood?_ The blood could have been from anything. A nosebleed Jade had had a month ago, or the drippings from a pre-irradiated steak. 

Even to herself, each explanation sounds more flimsy than the last.

John trips and crashes though the scattered pieces of armor, making a terrible racket. The tumbling, shining metal scatters bits of light across the walls and ceiling. Rose follows the spots, and narrows her eyes when they flit over a strangely shaped dark patch partially hidden by a propped up bookcase. She walks closer.

There's a swirling shape burned into the wall. Most of the design is behind the bookcase; she braces her shoulder against it and pushes it out of the way. The terrible screeching sound it makes as it scrapes across the floor draws Dave and John over, both sporting identical winces.

"Why's it look like that?" John says when the shape is revealed. Dave shrugs.

It's a spirograph. But not the kind that Rose is used to seeing -- this one is malformed and lopsided. It lacks the graceful symmetry of its Sburb counterparts, instead the dips and swirls melt into each other in a patternless mess. It's the Salvador Dali of spirographs and Rose is disquieted just looking at it.

The burned curves glisten slightly in the light, as if they were wet. Rose runs her finger along it, and then jerks her hand back when whatever it is sticks to her fingers. She brings her hand in front of her face. Her fingers are covered with very dark green slime that drips to the floor in thick dollops. It smells like a chemistry supply closet.

"Does this look like ectobiology slime to you?" She holds her hand out to John.

He peers at it. "Maybe? Looks weird though."

Yes. Weird. Like there was anything about this situation that was normal.

\----

The next room is filled with mounted animal heads, and Rose has given up on being disturbed by Jade's Grandpa's choice of interior design. A hundred shining pairs of glass eyes watch as the three of them spread out through the room, searching for any sign of Jade.

This room is another that seems completely undisturbed. Rose runs her hand along the back of a stuffed pronghorn antelope as she walks by, and her palm comes away coated in a thin layer of dust. Was it Jade's job to dust these things? Or did they just stay shut in this room with no disruption besides Jade running from staircase to staircase?

The thought of all these dead animals still and silent in the dark for years creeps Rose out to the extent that she needs to distract herself. John is staring at a gigantic hippopotamus head hung over a metal door.

"Thinking of becoming a Great White Hunter?" she says as she sidles up next to him.

"I'm going to go with 'oh god, no'" he says, blinking as he turns away from the animal's dead gaze.

Rose looks around the room again. Dave is on the other side of the room checking out a small alcove cluttered with tall shelves filled with books. He's quietly and methodically looking through each crowded aisle.

Rose turns back to John. "Have you checked in here yet?" She gestures towards the metal door. John shakes his head.

"Shall we?"

"Always making me open mysterious doors, huh?" He says with as much good nature as could be expected under the circumstances. He twists the heavy knob and walks in, with Rose following a second after. The door shuts with a solid thud behind them.

John immediately starts gagging. A breath later, Rose smells it too. Decay. Putrefaction. An overpowering smell that could not be anything other than meat rotting in the tropical heat. The tiled hallway that they've walked into is short and empty. There's nothing in here that could be causing the smell... except the closed door at the end of the hallway.

Rose considers going back to the big game room to fetch Dave. This could be the end of their search. This could be the end of... Jade. Maybe it would be best for the three of them to face whatever is behind this door together. Rose keeps her jaw firmly clenched shut. She remembers his face on the boat, heartbroken and hopeful. She remembers the green sun. Just a couple more minutes. She can protect him, if only for just a couple more minutes.

This time, Rose is the one who reaches forward and pushes open the door.

The room at the end of the hallway is dark. Sunlight sneaking under the closed blinds is the only source of light, and she can just barely see the outlines of a washer and dryer. In the corner there's a different shape. A terrible, girl-sized lump on the carpet. Rose stares at it as one hand scrambles to find the light switch; the other hand is busy pressing the collar of her shirt over her nose. The smell is truly unbearable.

Her fingers touch the switch. The sudden light is blindingly white. After a second, her eyes adjust and she sees more white. White fur covering the body on the floor. It's Bec.

And he's not exactly looking his best.

Bec is both bloated and sunken. Lying on his side, his stomach grossly bulges while his cloudy, shrunken eyes seem to be retreating back into his skull. Flies and beetles crawl along his fur and half open mouth. His tongue lolls out of his mouth and Rose can see the movement of hundreds of tiny maggots squirming in and out of the soft, rotting flesh. She watches as a large, gray beetle crawls into Bec's ear and dissapears. There are no obvious signs of injury on the body, as far as Rose can see through her watering eyes.

It's the most disgusting sight that Rose has ever seen, but despite everything she feels short rush of the most wonderful relief. It's not Jade.

Behind her, Rose hears John gag again - harder this time. Her own throat is starting to burn with encroaching bile. The sight, the _smell_ , is nearly causing a panic reaction. Her brain feels foggy. She can't fucking think in here. John gags for a third time and spits out a mouthful of saliva on the floor. 

"I gotta get out of here," John mumbles as he staggers back into the small hallway. Rose is quick on his heels, and shuts the door harshly behind them. They stand in the hallway for a couple of moments, recovering. Rose keeps her shirt pressed over her nose as she swallows desperately. Her ears are ringing.

"Dave must be missing us," Rose manages to say after the static in her brain recedes.

"Yeah." John sounds distracted. He leads the way out.

Rose closes the door behind her softly, her hand shaking. The animal heads stare.

"Any sign of her?" Rose startles at the sound of Dave's voice, though she doesn't know why. He's in the same spot that she left him.

"No," she answers simply.

John is silent.

\----

The atrium is a shock after the floors and floors of worry and gloom. Rose closes her eyes against the sun that shines through every window, but the light glows through her eyelids and cannot be ignored. Which is ultimately good, because it's healthy and natural, and when Rose opens her eyes she takes in what must have been Jade's favorite room in the house. 

"Jade!" Dave calls and begins his now familiar routine. The three of them spread out, walking between rows of potted sunflowers and thick ferns and tables covered with rhubarb plants. She spots a pair of dirty gardening gloves and a big pile of compost in the corner. A lone spade hangs from a hook on the wall.

The whole level is open and airy, the half open windows let in a soft but constant ocean breeze which breaks up what could easily become a stifling and claustrophobic environment. The room smells like humid soil, flowers, and the sea. 

"Hey, Rose, catch!" 

Rose reacts before she thinks about it and catches the thing that John has thrown to her from a few tables away. She feels a silly little moment of pride that she's managed not to fumble the thing, then looks down to see what's in her hands. It's a mango. She bites through the thick skin. It's delicious. 

Rose's thoughts begin to wander. This mango was grown by Jade's own hand, watered by her, sung to by her. Jade always did love her garden. It feels like the fruit could be a gift to Rose from Jade.

She keeps munching on the mango as she explores. There's a decent amount of clutter, and the plants grow thick, but there's not _that_ much space to search and between the three of them it's relatively short work. They come up empty handed. Rose feels a weight settle deep into her bones. She emerges from the maze of vegetation that she's been searching and moves closer to the window to get some air.

Normally Dave would be rushing up the stairs by now, seeing as this place contains a distinct lack of Jade, but he lingers too, pushing aside a gigantic leaf and joining her in the space by the window. That is perfectly fine with Rose, she finds that she is not in a hurry to get to the next, and final, room. She much prefers to stay here, in a place that Jade loves, where it is peaceful and green. They have found nothing but death and stillness since entering Jade's house, and the terrible ball of apprehension that has done nothing but grow with each ascended staircase suggests that they will soon find more of the same.

He runs his hand along the top of a pallet of purple flowers and their cheery blossoms bounce around as if they are all nodding to the beat. She wonders if he feels heavy too.

She takes a last bite of the mango before tossing it into the compost bin, and wipes a stray drop of juice off her chin as she looks out the window over the horizon that is just beginning to turn the orange-pink shade of a tropical sunset. Dave turns to look too, and his elbow gently nudges against hers. He keeps his arm just barely touching hers as they look blindly at the sea. _I am so sorry, Dave_ , is the only thought Rose has at that moment.

"What are we going to do if Jade isn't there?" John's voice is disembodied in the dense green foliage for a moment before he too joins them.

"Then we _keep fucking looking_ ," Dave snaps back, shifting away from her.

"Yes, but it may not be so simple as that," Rose says. "There is something decidedly otherworldly occurring here."

"Well, duh," says John. "We all saw that spirograph down there."

Dave doesn't dispute it. "Goddamn Sburb. We beat that shit. We beat that shit years ago."

Rose knows that. But she also knows that Jade, tough as nails by any rubric, is gone. Maybe hurt, maybe dead. They may have beat Sburb, but Rose doesn't think that Sburb is done with them yet.

John apparently agrees. "The biggest games always have a sequel," he says, and Rose wonders when he got so good at sounding ominous, or if she added the dark threat to the words inside her own head.

Suddenly, the atrium doesn't seem so peaceful. No place seems peaceful, or safe. If Sburb wants them, then it will find them. _But this isn't fair!_ , Rose wants to yell, but she knows that of course it doesn't matter. Not Sburb, the universe, Bilious Slick, nor anything else will pay even the slightest bit of attention if she yells and screams and cries like she wants to.

So she does the only thing that she can do -- she presses on. "I believe that Jade's bedroom is just up those stairs there," she says lightly, swallowing her frustration down like broken glass. "I suggest we continue with our search."

It only takes a minute before they are in Jade's room, a sight made familiar by all the silly photos that Jade has sent to each of them over the years. Full of stuffed animals (the non-taxidermied kind) and half-finished gadgets, it feels just as much like Jade as the atrium had. Rose's eyes travel to the incredibly dorky posters covering the walls. Dave runs his fingers over one that seems to depict anthropomorphic versions of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. His face is angry and hollow.

The sunset is now in full bloom, and a beautiful orange glow shines over Jade's empty, unmade bed and her rebuilt wardrobifier. Jade's laptop on the floor in the center of the room is outlined in a halo.

"Maybe she left a note?" John says. There is no confidence in his voice.

Rose feels one last flicker of hope, maybe it contains an explanation - something, anything. Half expecting to see nothing but the word 'gotcha!!!!' in seventy-two point font, Rose opens the top. There's no password protection (why would Jade need any?) and the holographic screen immediately fills the room. The background is something cute and colorful and it makes Rose want to cry.

There's only one window open - a draft memo, addressed to Dave, John and Rose. It's completely blank, except for a couple of unsent words blinking in the text field. Rose stares at it, and her face screws up, but still no tears come.

See you soon!!! :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To any readers out there: sorry it took so long to finish this up!


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